


swell with haste the perjured sails

by sansbanshees



Series: you got lucky [2]
Category: American Gods (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Tension everywhere, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Tension, general warning for the fucked up-ness that is mad sweeney and laura moon, no happy endings we cry like emotional wrecks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-27 00:13:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30114183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sansbanshees/pseuds/sansbanshees
Summary: She's going to kill him.Or maybe she won't.(The aftermath of Coq Noir.)
Relationships: Laura Moon/Mad Sweeney
Series: you got lucky [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2218827
Kudos: 11





	swell with haste the perjured sails

**Author's Note:**

> A companion fic to so sit back and watch the bed burn (https://archiveofourown.org/works/18392288)

She’s going to kill him.

It’s the first coherent thought that knits itself together when Sweeney wakes up in the morning with a thundering ache pounding in his head. The sun beats down on him, bright and unforgiving, his skin prickling beneath what has to have been a few hours of exposure, by now.

He cannot believe Brigitte left him out here like this. No fucking shirt on, only a single suspender strap keeping his pants above his ass, his prick still hanging out after…whatever that was.

No. He can believe it. Brigitte’s at the far end of the asshole spectrum herself and really, he’s always appreciated that about her. Is who she is, no matter the form she takes.

Still. Appreciation aside, words will be fucking had about this.

And about—

Laura.

Doesn’t sit right, that name. It suits her about as well as her husband had, does her no justice whatsoever, and he wonders how much thought was truly put into it. _Laurus_ , that’s what it stems from, some lofty roman bollocks about victory, and he’s hard-pressed to think of what it is she’s won with her short, shitty life ended as a sacrifice to a god she doesn’t believe in, dead with a bitten off knob jammed down her throat, insult piled on top of injury.

Grimnir had asked for artistry. _Paint a picture_ , he’d said. _An accurate one. I’m talking exact likeness on full display_. _The dead deserve to be seen._

And so he had.

A half-life as a shambling corpse is a piss poor prize after that, no victory there at all, though he supposes it could always be worse. She might be dead, but she isn’t gone, and that’s more than can be said of most people.

And it’s not as though some penance hasn’t been earned, on her part.

She’s a mean little thing, Laura Moon. A nasty slip of a girl, faithless and bitter, selfish beyond all measure, and it had been a struggle to find a single redeeming thing about her or her shitty little life in Nowhere, Indiana.

He’d liked her cat. What had it’s name been? Something insulting, he remembers that much. It was an old thing, the noises it made dry and croaking, but it was friendly enough the first time he’d met it, twining about his ankles and nipping at the split hem of his pants while he’d peeked through her window a few weeks after her precious husband’s arrest only to get an eyeful of the most boring, lifeless wank he’d ever seen. There she’d been, settled back on the couch with her legs splayed open, hand mashed down her panties and her eyes never left the ceiling, like she couldn’t even feel what she was doing. Why Grimnir wanted tabs kept on this one when the husband was already in prison, he hadn’t understood at the time.

“Fuck me,” he remembers muttering, glancing down towards the cat with pity. “This what your life is in that house? _”_

A soft little croak had been it’s answer before it fell over on its side and curled around his foot, tugging emphatically then at the loose threads while it’s hind feet kicked madly at his boot, harmless play he couldn’t bring himself to chase off when it was likely the most stimulating thing to happen to that old cat in an age.

Fuck’s sake, what had it’s name been?

By the time his attention returned to the window, she’d given up and risen, padding barefoot into the kitchen with a dead-eyed stare ahead, bored and perfunctory, like motion itself was just another one of life’s shitty chores. He remembers being struck by the urge to pound on her window while she’d gone about washing her hands, just to see if it’d rattle her. If anything could startle her into an honest reaction.

Last night—that had been honest, shock he won’t soon forget etched across her face, and isn’t that always how _truth_ goes for the unsuspecting cunt made to stare it down?

It’s painful. Humiliating. Nothing inspires a sense of shame quite like the bitter sting of knowing things you’d rather not know about yourself. He knows that better than anyone. That’s the value of it, why the Baron had wanted something true, some secret buried so deep she could easily pretend it isn’t there—those are the best of the worst, the ones that hurt.

Pain in all its forms is second only to sacrifice as currency to his lot, but really, they’re intimately entwined, the wound pain punches open a messy little spillway for all that precious lifeblood to gush out of. There’ll be none of the latter without the former, rules Sweeney’s never quite liked, but there’s no point arguing the mechanics when you can’t change concepts man made and bullet proof, humanity’s sheer pigheadedness surrounding what gods actually want their own greatest downfall. Doesn’t count if it doesn’t hurt. That’s what they choose to believe. It’s fucked, is what it is.

He’s fucked, and not in a way that nets him a sliver of reprieve in the ordeal. _Last night_ , this is not.

He hadn’t been clear-headed enough to consider much beyond the moment, preoccupied with the shock and awe of it all, but there’s a twinge to it now, what happened and what it tells him.

It hadn’t come from his head, that truth. It’s _there_ for him, firmly rooted and pushing towards the surface like a graveside weed, and it isn’t something he’s made his peace with by any stretch of imagination, but he’d have offered it, if asked. If giving it up amounted to paying off this debt to her, a life, and that’s the least of what he owes before he can truly collect his coin. Had that been his price to pay, he wouldn’t have hesitated for longer than—a century, maybe. In which case it’d be for nothing in the end because she’d be rotted through inside of the first few months, meat soup and a pile of bones. Which is what tends to happen when you run someone off the road and watch the life in their eyes smolder out, magical coin reanimation not withstanding.

The sting that comes from knowing he’s the awful, buried thing she wouldn’t want to admit to, that’s just another trespass too far. He hasn’t the right to any feeling on the matter and resolves not to have a one.

He sighs. Scrubs a hand over his face, tucks his prick back into his pants, and hauls himself upright to gather the rest of his clothes, taking his own sweet time in putting them on before he begins the long walk back to the gallows.

If she does kill him, it’ll be a fate he earned. Not the one he wanted, not a battle, not fighting a war that’s worthy of his end, but when has he ever gotten what he wanted?

There’s her, now, the first thing in...he can’t remember how long. He can admit that much to himself, that he’d wanted something from her. His coin back. Last night all over again. Nothing. More. Not wanting her dead is in there too, for reasons less selfish than he’d like to admit. That one, he’s certain will manifest.

It has to have worked. He’s never known the Baron to fail. That’s not nothing, as settled debts go. And he’d hated owing her, hated what it meant for him, to him, that he couldn’t rip his better nature out by its roots when it comes to her because she is nothing but excruciating work.

Before, he’d have thrown what he’s learned about her right back in her face to make their parting of ways as vile as possible. Certainly be easier, making it ugly. Cleaner. He could walk away, leave her in the rear view fresh as a spring bindweed where she belongs, and be done with it.

Now? That’s a coin toss still in the air.

Assuming, of course, that she doesn’t kill him.

Maybe she won’t. There’d been shock last night, true enough, but…not disgust. Not outrage. Not denial. It seemed almost curious, some new awareness she hadn’t been keen to discard out of hand, and then...

He hadn’t done much. He _couldn’t_. Not for lack of pondering the very thing, because he has. More than once, some version of that moment has gone flitting through his mind. He saw it before it ever came to pass, and away he’d sent those flashes of a likely outcome where they might die buried and forgotten in the hoard, if he was lucky.

It’s established fact that his luck is for absolute shit these days.

He hadn’t buried Laura Moon at all. He planted her. His own personal crop of comeuppance, grown from the sun’s own treasure. He’d wonder exactly what it is he’s done to earn _her_ as a lesson, but he already knows. He’s always known. Finding her in that shitty motel, not alive but still miraculously kicking, that’s the least surprising thing in all of this.

He turns a corner, and the bar is in sight. She’ll be there, all warm and breathing.How the rest of it goes is a coin toss too, but which side it comes up is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. This only truly ends one way.

Heads would still be a nice change of pace. It wouldn’t be so bad, he thinks, to soldier on to his end knowing that someone on this shit excuse for a planet remembers him for something more than parlor tricks. Even if it’s her.

Maybe especially if it’s her.

He opens the door, walks inside, and immediately wishes he hadn’t.

The look on her face at the sight of him is caught somewhere between rage and the verge of tears. The step he takes towards her is more an awkward shuffle of feet.

“Hey.” All his usual pluck has fled. All he can do is shift his gaze downwards when she looks at him like that, the floor suddenly a fascinating study. “By yourself?”

There’s a moment, when he glances back up, where he thinks it might be fine. She rolls her eyes, a scoff bubbling up, a smile breaking through the earlier strain in her face.

It’s just—the newness of it. Being alive again. All that sensory input must be a shock to a system weeks dead. That’s what that look was about. Understandable. Maybe even normal. He’s not seen enough resurrections up close to really be sure and he’d slunk off, bored out of his mind, when Jesus droned on about his but—it’s fine. She’s fine now. She doesn’t need his coin anymore. They’ll have a drink, say fuck off, and that’ll be that. He’ll miss her, probably, for some inexplicable reason, until he finds himself on the business end of a spear and then there’ll be nothing left of him to miss anyone.

“I don’t know why you came back here,” she finally says, her smile pulling so tight that it flattens, disappearing completely. “I’m leaving.”

His eyes narrow. “Where’re you off to?”

She sighs, and the sound of it is weary resignation. “Away from you.”

“What?” She tries to stalk past him and he reaches out, fingers curling tight around her arm to keep her firmly the fuck in place. “No—wait!”

If she’s done with this, that’s—fine. Better for both of them in the long run, truly. It’s not what he hoped for, nothing ever is, but there’s still business to finish here. A battle ahead. A death. None of that happens without his coin. Picked off by his own misfortune without a fighting chance is _not_ what he owes.

She glances down to where he’s holding her, all the piss and vinegar she’d had the last time he tried this missing. “Don’t make me hurt you.”

“Might I remind you that we had a deal?” This time, he doesn’t let go.She doesn’t get to do this, go back on her word and fucking walk away. “You get your life back, I get my coin.”

“Well, I didn’t get my life back, did I?” It's striking, the precision in which she removes her arm from his hold. There’s no snapping of bones, no relish taken in the opportunity to answer with violence. It’s pure detached efficiency, nothing she’s ever used on him before. “So, fuck you, deal’s off, I’m keeping your fucking coin.”

“Like fuck you are!” He chases her down when she skirts around him and tries to leave again, cuts her off at the pass and blocks her path as best he can. What the fuck happened between last night and now to make her— _this?_ “What happened? It didn’t work?”

That must be it. She did something. She fucked it up. She must have. She backed out, she flinched, who fucking knows, but _something_ happened, something Brigitte certainly hadn’t seen fit to warn him about, pulling that little disappearing act instead. That one stings, but he’s got bigger problems at the moment, where to go next chief amongst them.

He rifles through the index of all the gods he knows, searching for the next one to try. The Baron might have been their best shot, but not the only one.

There’s—fuck. The Dagda. The right end of that prick’s club could do the job, if he offered his own head in exchange. He’s got less than no favors to call in there and nothing resembling the kinship found inside the walls of this bar, that fucker hates him and he has no idea why. They’ve only crossed paths the once and he nearly died for it, met with blind fury and the very club they’d need. He’ll be lucky as all fuck to escape that one and make it to the battle that actually matters, but it’s worth considering.

There’s still the gaggle of Jesuses, much as he hates that route. He’s really not sure she’ll be able to swallow the sanctimony and lie about wanting salvation, and that’s good for a fucking laugh if she’s somehow fucked up offering a single truth to the Baron, the last being on the goddamn planet that would hold it over her head or judge her for it. _He_ doesn’t even judge her for it. Every other fucking thing she does, yes, but not _that._

“Oh, please.” Her smile is back, so much worse than before. “Bullshit.”

“ _What?”_ he spits out, exasperated and struggling to contain the urge to pick her up and fucking shake her. It’s not as though this is the first time they’ve struck out, even if it is somehow her fault. Ostara had been a dead end too, and on account of him, no less. This is no fucking different.

“Bullshit,” she says, again, as if that clears _any_ of this up. “Fucking bullshit! This is all Wednesday, all of this!”

And then, finally—she explains. Lays it all right there at his feet, the whole sordid trap of it, she’s got it all figured out now, and he can’t help the harsh little laugh that slips out because she can’t, she _cannot_ be this fucking stupid.

Of course she can.

Knowing what he does of her, he should have seen that one coming. Should have known she’d rear back from truth and grab at the flimsiest lie possible to make it fit with all the _other_ bullshit that thick head of hers clings to.

Gods aren’t real.

Nothing she’s ever done in her whole shitty life warrants the penance she’s paying now, oathbreaker that she is.

She loves her husband, heart and soul.

The one stupid cunt actually in her corner and doing everything, _everything_ he possibly can to square things and help her, he goes about fucking corpses like some necrophiliac whore for hire just to rub salt in the wound of her untimely demise on behalf of the one-eyed devil himself.

Only once before does he think he’s ever heard anything so willfully fucking dense _._ Precisely what it was, he can’t recall, that moment lives somewhere in those dead spots he’s long since given up probing at for anything more than vague shapes and impressions, but he’s certain there was a woman involved, one far too smart to spout off a load of bollocks and think he’ll leave it be.

What he’d done in response to it is beyond his ability to recall, too, but it wouldn’t surprise him to find that he hadn’t let it stand. He surely isn’t fucking going to now.

He does not hesitate to tell her exactly how stupid she is. How wrong she’s gotten it, how little she actually understands, some inexplicable bit of hope that pushing back on her nonsense will make a bit of difference clinging to him like the worst sort of blood sucking parasite.

In the interest of fairness, thinking she might be reasoned with, that she might actually see things for what they are this time around when every moment of past experience says different, that makes him plenty fucking stupid, too.

It’s that thought that forces open a recollection he’s been grasping at the whole way here.

_Dummy._

That’s what the cat’s name was.

What a righteous cunt she is, naming her cat something like that. Crying her crocodile tears when it keeled over and died and made _work_ for her. All that messy business of burials and grief and goodbyes with no Shadow Moon around to pawn the responsibility off on and exactly the reason she’d called that dickless shit for brains over to be a stand in. Bran for-fucking-bid she face anything on her own without dodging or trying to fuck her way out of it.

And she has the gall to call _him_ a coward. At least he knows it. He’d bet the whole of his hoard she can’t say the same of herself. The whole fuck ton of gold. All the half empty bottles he couldn’t be bothered to dispose of when he might need them later. Every thought and possibility he’s ever locked away, every useless trinket, every speck of garbage, piles of relics museums would shit themselves over, and the pissed off, undoubtedly ravenous púca prowling about the mess of it. All of it, hers, for the bargain price of one more truth.

But it doesn’t matter, does it? She already has what she needs from him. She’s already got the one thing of value he had, and he wishes he meant his dignity, but there was never much of that to be taken in the first place.

What was it she’d said all those weeks ago, when he kicked that door in and finally met her face to face after slinking about so long in the shadows around her?

_You’re fucked. I don’t think you’re ever going to get your coin back. Never, ever, ever. Not ever._

Clear as church bells, that memory. He can almost hear them when she walks out the door.

It’s a lucky thing she’s leaving with his coin still in tow now that she’s finished spilling his guts all over the floor. The curse he sends after her won’t be nearly as potent with that in her corner. Best he can hope for is a worm writhing down out of her nose when the next fucking idiot in line sees her and thinks it’ll be a good idea to cozy up to her rotting carcass. That’ll scare him off good. Remind her of what she really is, no matter how hard she tries to convince herself she’s a real girl with a life that was ever worth getting back to in the first place.

Fuck her.

It’s the least of what she deserves.

**Author's Note:**

> I've only been working on this one for the better part of 2 years. St. Patrick's Day seemed as good a day as any to finally finish it. Happy unlucky Leprechaun Day.


End file.
